[ubuntu-studio-devel] Packages up for removal, unless someone wants to maintain them

[Filipe Coelho]

On 09-09-2015 23:46, Len Ovens wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Sep 2015, Ross Gammon wrote:
>
>> On 08/31/2015 11:02 PM, Len Ovens wrote:
>>> On Fri, 28 Aug 2015, Ross Gammon wrote:
>>>
>>>> I was just looking at a couple of bugs against zynjacku, and it turns
>>>> out that this package was removed from Debian a while ago because 
>>>> it is
>>>> buggy and abandoned upstream
>>>
>>> zynjacku can be replaced with lv2rack and/or jalv. I would also suggest
>>> we package Carla for debian. KXStudio's binary tarball already just
>>
>> I have submitted a Request For Package (RFP) bug for Carla:
>> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=798490
>>
>> My backlog of things to package is quite long now, but if no-one beats
>> me to it I will eventually do it myself.
>
> It is less easy than it looks.

oh hi there!
Nice to see someone interested on packaging Carla.

Note that I recommend going with the latest beta release.
If this is really going into Debian I can certainly try to push a little 
harder for a new beta or possibly RC release.


> The rules file needs tweaking to get it to work. There is no 
> ./configure to run, but at least while figuring things out it needs to 
> be built as:
>
> make features
> make
> sudo make install
make features is not really needed, but as you said it helps figuring 
out what's missing.

Everything in Carla (2.x series) is optional, even the frontend.
But you most likely want the frontend.

Also another thing to note is that I recommend building against Qt4 and 
not Qt5, as that allows to have the carla-vst plugin.
(Qt5 is missing the X11 embed classes).


>
> As to what needs to be in a packaged Carla:
> ...
>
> $ make features
> ---> Engine drivers:
> JACK:       YES
> ALSA:       YES
> PulseAudio: YES
>
> Jack for sure, but it is not hard to have the other two..
JACK will always be on, Carla doesn't use libjack-dev but a "weakjack" 
like system that autodetects wherever JACK is available and what 
features it provides.

ALSA and PulseAudio, well why not.
For them the final dependencies will only be libasound2 and libpulse0, 
which all desktop systems have anyway.


> ---> Plugin formats:
> Internal: YES
> LADSPA:   YES
> DSSI:     YES
> LV2:      YES
> VST:      YES
>
> Internal is not "required" and not having it may leave a smaller 
> package/binary
Those are always on ;)

In Carla 2.x there's also VST3 and AU but those don't work in Linux anyway.


> ---> LV2 UI toolkit support:
> ExternalUI: YES  (direct)
> GtkUI:      YES  (bridge)
> Gtk3UI:     NO  [Gtk3 missing]
> Qt4UI:      YES  (direct+bridge)
> Qt5UI:      NO  [Qt5 missing]
> X11UI:      YES  (direct+bridge)
>
> It is suggested not to use qt5 at this time. gtk3 missing has not kept 
> any of my plugins from from working.

You *should* have all possible toolkits enabled.
Those are not linked to the main Carla library but use external compiled 
tools,
so there's no possiblity of conflicts.

By having those enabled it will make Carla able to load qt5 or gtk3 LV2 
UIs wherever they arrive.
It also helps plugin devs to test their plugins, as no other host 
supports those.
(Qtractor built with qt5 can load qt5 plugins, but that one is not 
recommended)


> ---> Sample formats:
> GIG: NO  [LinuxSampler missing]
> SF2: YES
> SFZ: NO  [LinuxSampler missing]
>
> SF2: just means fluid synth is there I think.
Correct.
There's some alternatives for SFZ file handling I can later implement if 
this becomes a very desired feature.


> ---> Internal plugins:
> AudioFile:   YES  (without ffmpeg) [ffmpeg/libav missing or too new]
> MidiFile:    YES
> DISTRHO:     YES
> ZynAddSubFX: NO  [fftw-3, mxml or zlib missing]
>
> The ZynAddSubFX plugin that Studio ships (in the Ubuntu repos) works 
> just fine if the internal plugin does not.
These are different in 2.x now.

Also it might be useful to actually build the zyn internal plugin,
because that plugin (along with carla itself and the other internals) 
will be exported as LV2 plugins.
This way you can get zynaddsubfx working as an LV2 plugin. :)


Thanks again.
If you have any questions about Carla let me know.